Behind the Scenes

This fabulous and ingenious Broadway costume designer is stealing the spotlight with his magical creations!

Gregg Barnes is a Broadway costume designer who hails from the great city of San Diego.  At first, his plan was to be a high school teacher because his major in college was dramatic literature. After taking some technical classes, he found a strong connection to design and clothing. A costume designer named Robert Morgan came to talk to some peers, and after talking to him, Gregg changed the course of his life. He went to NYU and got his masters in costume design, then taught there for twenty years. In the meantime, he was the resident costume designer at Paper Mill Playhouse, where he met Jerry Mitchell (the director of Legally Blonde). He later did several shows with him on Broadway. When asked about being a costume designer, he replied that being a designer means you have to be a good listener. “Sometimes you develop all these ideas, but they haven’t cast the actor…you have to be flexible, sometimes you have to change for the actor.” His past work includes circus shows, the Radio City Christmas show and ice shows, Legally Blonde, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Being a costume designer entails more than just design. Lots of research goes into each show. For instance, take Legally Blonde. Gregg says “well, we’ve seen the movie a thousand times!” Gregg and his assistant Skye spent a lot of time photographing people in New York City on the Upper East Side. There were also people photographing kids at Harvard, Rodeo Drive, and Los Angeles. The work is tough, but the results are so worth it!Info source: www.broadwaysd.com